Russian Defense Minister Shoigu's proposal to move the capital to Siberia and create three to five new cities is still fermenting, and Siberia is also his hometown. It is said that the Soviet power city was probably rebuilt near Minusinsk, a small town located on both sides of the Inisei River, in the middle of the Minusinsk Basin, with a population of 69,000 (1985). The nearby coal reservoir is abundant, and the industry includes food, copper smelting, motor and electrical appliance manufacturing. Minusinsk, a small city with a long history. It is the central area of archaeological work in the former Soviet Union and an important part of the steppe Silk Road where northern China and the Eurasian steppe exchanged
Russian experts began to discuss the construction of a Strategic Ark article on the construction of Russia, and there is a view that Russia needs to build a system from scratch to form a characteristic functional "city" in order to be saved from the "biblical flood" of society. Shoigu appears to be responsible for shifting the strategic focus to the Siberian project.
As for the Electric Power City (Electric Grad), it was a large Industrial Development Project in Siberia in the Soviet Union. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the Soviet Union drew up a plan to develop 10 industrial centers centered on Sayansky, according to which the most powerful industrial nodes – Minusinsk, Abakansky, Montenegro and Sayanogorsky in the Siberian hinterland – would be built in 2000. It is believed that this will ensure that the economic superiority of the Soviet Union over the United States is guaranteed.
The speed at which the Soviet Union developed in the region was impressive. In 1984, it was reported that production here had tripled in the last five years. One of the most important buildings is the Power City, a cluster of 12 large factories that began construction in 1973, just a few kilometers from Minusinsk, where the first "Shoygurd" will appear, according to insiders. Upon completion of the project, power electronics, turbine generators, large motors, complete power distribution equipment, cables, all consumer electronics, including microprocessors, modern chips will be produced.
The Soviet government planned to allocate a total of about 10.1 billion rubles for the construction of an electric power city. In contrast, the annual budget of the former Soviet Union in 1984 totaled 88 billion rubles. As it turns out, these astronomical figures alone are not enough to complete the "huge plan".
In 1976, the Soviet Union fully launched the construction of the power city, and the special equipment factory was put into use in 1978. It mainly produces the world's only ultra-high-speed and high-precision SM-600 printed circuit board drilling rig, automated production line for battery manufacturing, automatic plasma cutting machine and shelf-type automated warehouse. In 1980, the second high-voltage vacuum switch factory was opened in the electric city. It's a whole new type of product that can't be mass-produced anywhere in the world. Each enterprise has established design bureaus and academic institutions, as well as engineering and technical retraining centers.
However, the power city faced a shortage of cash and mismanagement, and the situation deteriorated to the point where the construction of four new plants was virtually stalled. A whole bunch of almost insurmountable problems were created on the site, the main one being that people didn't want to come here.
The problem in the electric city is very serious: in a short period of time, although two high-end production lines have been launched, there should actually be 12! Many projects were changed to "long-term construction" because there was no money. This has dealt a blow to the construction of the power city. Coupled with the cold local climate and the fact that people prefer warmer places, the direction of the Urals is considered a political reference.
Now Shoigu's idea of building 3-5 major cities in Siberia is actually to restore the development plan of the Soviet era, take into account the potential of Siberia, build a cluster of industry-university-research cities, and create a strategic ark for the revitalization of Russia.
But while the idea is good, it's hard to implement. First of all, young people will not go to Minusinsk because it is unlikely to get a decent salary. Now young Russians like to work and live in Moscow, with high salaries, good living conditions, many opportunities, good climate, and close proximity to Europe.
Now Russian teenagers like money, do not want to change the world and make life better by hard work and pragmatism, or at least can not be responsible for society and family, now they are mostly egoists and individualists. As a result, they will not live in cities with new climates and cold to work.
The revitalization of Siberia is good, but similar large-scale projects have failed. In particular, the construction of the railway from Kizir (the capital of Tuva) to Kulagino (the largest railway hub in the south of the Krasnoyarsk region) was postponed until 2026, although Putin himself scored the first sleeper as early as 2011.
Of course, like air, Russia does need an electric power city. But without trillions of dollars in investment, Minusinsk would never have become an electrical and electronics industry. Unless Sergei Shoigu himself settled in Minusinsk, the project is likely to succeed. His biggest dream is to return to his hometown of Siberia, where he will build two new cities.